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When at last Bertrand d’Arsy emerged from his study-closet, Cedric Armstrong was waiting with ewer and basin and towel, lithely tall and handsome and for all the world like the sleekly elegant bath servants they had seen in imperial Constantinople. It was late, and the lord of Falconmere had been seeking to postpone sleep and its cares by studying over one of the stories of his Greek books; the hazy cast of the strange language and its romance hung over his mind still. For a moment he thought he was transported back to those days at the Palaeologian court, when he had been a carefree knight errant with Cedric by his side and little responsibility but pleasure and gallant adventure. But no— this was cold dreary England, where a thousand burdens and cares of lordship hung over him, burdens not unwanted, but onerous nonetheless, and where his rights were bought dearly with blood and would be defended with blood again and again from a hateful enemy. Where his own duties and Cedric’s kept them more often apart than either desired, if he were to look honestly at the matter.
“Do you still have so much leisure that you can dance attendance on me?” he growled to cover his moment of disorientation. “Where is my servant Simon? Who is seeing to the vigils, man? Should you not be starting the inventories in the armory by now, if you cannot sleep in your bed at night?”
“I sent Simon to bed, my lord,” said Cedric calmly, “for I minded to stay up for you tonight, outside your door or within it. Long John oversees the sentries, and Jenkin—one of the new men—seconds him, to learn the way of it. The inventory is done: Adam Fletcher wants arrowheads, but the coats and swords we took in the last skirmish with the Scots will do, when they are mended in the balance. Of the new men,” he continued, seeing his lord making as if to ask the question, “Jenkin will do for my lord’s guard now; Peter needs some toughening and training; Ralph is green yet. Also—” he counted off on his fingers— “Martin has had his stripes for his tardiness of yesterday, I have warned Cook to turn his leman out of bed more promptly a-mornings, and young Marcel has a black eye from a bount of wrestling he chanced into with Ned Smithson this evening, wherefrom Master Marcel emerged the victor.”
“Chanced into?”
Cedric shrugged. “So the boys said, my lord, and the “chance” dealt them each some bruises they will remember on the training-court tomorrow. But they were in a goodly humor about it, so I did as you have often bade done on other occasions and let it go.”
Bertrand nodded his assent. “Well enough, then. But none of that explains why you take Simon’s place tonight.”
Cedric’s face grew still for a moment, but then he grinned. “Have I not then earned my leisure, my lord, and have I not always had your leave to spend it as I chose? But come: the water is hot; will my lord not warm himself after so much cold study?” He poured water into the basin and knelt to offer it with a courtly flourish.
The warm water was a relief—Bertrand had not realized how cold his hands had grown when he had taken his gloves off to manipulate the delicate pages of the little Greek book—but it was pleasant also to be so close to Cedric, to see the content light in his bright blue eyes when Betrand stooped over the basin to splash water on his face. Cedric dried his hands with the same delicacy, then gave him the towel for his face and turned back to the hearth to fetch a goblet of the wine that had been heating there. Bertrand watched the glowing curve of firelight along his arms and thighs, and that warmed him nearly as well as the hot water had. Cedric moved with the grace of a fighting man, unstudied but not unconscious.
“Cedric?”
“My lord?”
“Why are you here attending me, instead of in your own bed?” As he asked the question a second time, a hint of iron came into his voice.
Cedric had knelt again to present the wine, and now as he looked up, his eyes sparkled with mirth. “I had liefer be in yours, my lord.” Their fingers touched as Bertrand took the cup.
“I should punish you for that insolence,” grumbled Bertrand. He did not pull away from the touch.
“Your will, my lord,” replied Cedric in perfect obedience, but his face was fond.
Bertrand’s other hand slipped down to cup Cedric’s cheek. “You always know my will, Cedric.”
“Yes,” answered the other simply. He pressed a kiss to Bertrand’s knuckles, where he held the cup. “Why should I let anyone else serve you, my lord, when I know you first and best?”
At last, Bertrand allowed himself to smile. The feeling of displacement had faded; the burdens that had seemed so cold and heavy when he had stepped from his reading no longer loomed ominous but could be seen awaiting him in good order. Their days of carefree adventure were gone, but Cedric, his Cedric remained constant. And with Cedric, Falconmere could be as warm as the Greek Caesar’s perfumed courts.